


Why Won't You Break (For Me)

by simplesetgo



Category: Legend of the Seeker
Genre: F/F, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-07
Updated: 2010-09-07
Packaged: 2017-10-18 12:48:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/189053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplesetgo/pseuds/simplesetgo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/lots_femslash/319788.html">prompt</a>: "Eternity, Dahlia comforting Cara during her breaking."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Why Won't You Break (For Me)

Dahlia couldn’t sleep.

She laid in the darkness of her quarters, staring at the moonlit shadows across the ceiling. Cara was two levels down, in a room equally dark, still hanging from chains where Dahlia had left her. Alone.

She hadn’t wanted to hurt Cara. She had hoped that, somehow, she would be able to break through, that the years they had spent at each other's side would be enough. But the Seeker’s poisonous words had reached deeper than she feared, and when Cara had spat back her attempts, she had given herself over to the cold rage.

It wasn’t anger at Cara. It was anger at the people who stole her from Dahlia. The people that changed her, made her weak. Yet it was Cara’s flesh that took the punishment, and Dahlia had spent hours doling it out.

She couldn’t believe that the Cara she knew, her Cara, was gone. She couldn’t believe that Cara would throw away everything they shared, everything they had been. Together.

The shadows crept slowly across the dark stone above her, and Dahlia knew what she was going to do. She rose suddenly, and left her quarters before she could change her mind.

****

The training room was completely silent and completely dark. Dahlia stole a torch from the wall outside and stepped through the doorway, and was greeted by the sight so familiar yet so strange. A half-naked body, hanging silent, still, and loose from chains. Cara’s body. Her head hung loosely forward; but for the slight rise and fall of her chest, one would think it was sleep of the permanent kind.

Dahlia set the torch in a sconce inside, and closed the door shut as quietly as the creaking hinges would allow. She approached the winch and slowly, ever so slowly, turned the handle and lowered Cara to the floor. It occurred to her that she had no way of explaining what she was about to do; if any of her elder Sisters happened past, she would likely be disciplined.

Cara’s sudden intake of breath echoed across the chamber and wiped away any last doubts she had. Dahlia took a jar of salve from the table against the wall and moved to her side. She helped Cara raise herself up and over the dark hole beneath her, and reached to undo the shackles around her wrists as she gained her footing.

Cara stared at her, wordlessly, and Dahlia finally whispered the words she hoped were true. “You’re having a dream, Cara.”

Cara nodded, and leaned heavily on her before collapsing slowly to the cold stone floor. Dahlia joined her on the way down, and swallowed heaviness as she sat cross legged on the floor and drew Cara’s head to rest on her thigh.

She brushed away the matted hair from Cara’s face, and Cara took even breaths as she gazed up at Dahlia. “This is a dream,” Dahlia reminded her. Cara closed her eyes and nodded, almost imperceptibly. Dahlia opened the jar and dipped her fingers into the ointment, and applied it carefully to Cara’s wrists rubbed bloody raw. She began undoing the pain and healing the wounds she’d caused mere hours before, but she didn’t apologize. It would cheapen it.

When she’d salved Cara’s temple and the wounds on her sides, stomach, and shoulders, Cara sighed below her, and Dahlia knew the pain had stopped. She drew her hand to Cara’s face, tracing the contours and lines she knew so well. “Do you remember,” Dahlia began softly. “When we were young Mord-Sith? Fresh from our breaking? I stood beside you when Lord Rahl granted us the Magic against the Magic. Do you remember, Cara?”

Cara’s lips curled slightly beneath her. “You were scared,” she whispered. Her first words since Dahlia had entered the chamber. “You never liked magic.”

Dahlia nodded. “I was, but you kissed me. Before we went into the room with the others, you took me aside, and you kissed me and told me you would be right there beside me.”

“Did it help?”

Dahlia traced her jaw and lowered her head to Cara’s, pressing a kiss to her lips that was far more gentle than it had any right to be. The feel of Cara’s lips, pushing back against her own with just the right amount of pressure, was something she realized she sorely missed. There was a tenderness, in their touch, that Dahlia had all but forgotten existed in the world. She wouldn’t dare seek it out in any other, and had had to bury it deep when Cara left to take up leadership of a different temple.

She lifted her head and looked into Cara’s eyes, and almost told her that she missed her. Cara seemed to understand anyway, and brought a trembling hand to Dahlia’s face; it gained strength and sureness as her fingers ran down Dahlia’s cheek. Cara murmured her name and searched her eyes, and the word seemed to carry the weight of every other that had ever passed between them.

Dahlia lowered her forehead to Cara’s, and hated herself for asking the question. “Why will you not break for me?” she whispered.

Cara was silent, eyes closed for a moment. “Don’t,” she answered at length. “Let me dream, Dahlia. Please.”

Dahlia swallowed bitterness, and pushed aside the part of her that belonged to the Lord Rahl, and to her Sisters. The part of herself that belonged to Cara, and always would, came forth and filled her, and Dahlia pressed another kiss to Cara’s lips.

“Do you remember the old lady that lived next to my family?” Dahlia whispered.

A half smile appeared on Cara’s face. “The woman you thought was a sorceress?”

Dahlia nodded shyly, and they retreated deep into their memories together. The time passed slowly as they talked in whispers; Cara didn’t move, but Dahlia shifted and moved around her, lying beside her, resting her head on her chest, and generally being as close as possible to her Cara. The Cara she remembered.

When she looked up and the high and narrow windows were carrying faint morning light into the room, there was a sudden pang in her chest, and she stole one last kiss, somehow the most gentle of all, before it was time for the dream to end.

Dahlia rose, muscles aching, and returned the jar of salve in exchange for a small cloth. She moved back to Cara and knelt, and began wiping the ointment from Cara’s skin. Cara stared at the ceiling and waited, and when Dahlia reached an arm around her neck, Cara pushed up and rose shakily, walking with effort back to the chains. She raised her arms and Dahlia re-shackled her, not pausing to ask why Cara didn’t try to fight.

She turned the winch, slowly, and watched as Cara’s feet left the floor; Cara looked straight ahead, unflinching.

Dahlia should have left; she shouldn’t have even looked one last time. But she did, and she found herself walking over to Cara and raising a hand to her face. Cara nestled her cheek into Dahlia’s palm, and looked down at Dahlia and smiled. It was a smile Dahlia hadn’t seen in many years, and it brought forth dangerous feelings in her, feelings she wasn’t sure she would be able to fight down. So she dropped her hand and backed away, and the smile faded as Cara’s head bowed. She became the picture Dahlia had seen when she entered the room earlier that night, and Dahlia finally tore her gaze away and stepped through the door.

When she closed it behind her, Dahlia pressed the back of her head against it and closed her eyes. She knew they would never speak of this night, even if the breaking succeeded. If it didn’t, at least she had been able to say goodbye.


End file.
